Bioinformatics was pretty hot in the mid- to late- ’90s, when biological data management and data integration was largely a new topic for most Academic institutions, biotech companies, and Pharma. Similar to the IT and financial service industries, bioinformatics was also initially perceived as a “good business model” to serve the biotech/pharma industry by providing discovery-oriented services. However, with the open-source “free software” spirits in the field, the complex scientific marketing challenges, the long discovery process, the generally high-risk nature of biotech, the booming of bioinformatics seemed to be “short-lived” as a business practice or an independent practice in the industry, except for in the Academia (correct me if this is not the case in your company). As an educator, technologist, and an entrepreneur, I’d like to poll expert opinions on the future of this field. Is Bioinformatics still a viable career choice for many aspiring students who expect a rewarding career returns after BS/MS/PhD trainings?
Would the future of bioinformatics exist only as a service to the biotech/pharma industry where continued integration of biological sciences/applications may take place, or as a brand-new industry (e.g., Bloomberg/morningstar in financial services) to be developed in the future era of “personalized medicine”?”

The future is there [...] There are a wide variety of companies trying to commercialize bioinformatics.
Some of these businesses have been around for many years, but a lot of them are just jumping in with nothing but hype to sell, trying and gain some market share and position themselves as “leaders” in the new area of genomics, hoping to become profitable or get bought out before the venture capital funds dry up (fonte della citazione).